Books and blankets

So I have been making more baby things....

Recently finished item include another blanket, this time a crocheted grey blanket that is really soft and snuggly. For more information I have uploaded the project to the love knitting website where I found the pattern but here are some pictures.

I have also had some fun constructing a soft, quilted number book. Which is probably more for me than the baby (even a super advanced child isn't going to want a number book as a newborn - yes I do know that!!) but I enjoyed making it and it is something soft a squidgy for him to play with.

I had to make this up as I went along but think it came out fairly well. I started with a jungle animal panel form the fabric guild in Leicester and began by chopping up each of the squares.

Each square was quilted directly on to some wadding. I spent ages doing this, programming in the numbers and words to my sewing machine and playing with different patterns to make the quilting interesting. 

When I was happy with each one I pressed them and trimmed around the edges so they were all the same size.

It was a bit of a headache trying to work out how the pieces now needed to go together to turn out in the correct order and I had to make a couple of extra non-number pages to make up the sequence. The centre of the book I wanted to use the elephant procession and the two alphabet and number lines.

When I had worked out the order I attached the quilted squares to some calico and then bound pairs of calico pages together. I had to hand sew down each binding otherwise it didn't look very neat.

Finally the pages were sewn together in the centre for a completed cute safari counting book....

Blankets and Quilts

This is a combined post as I finished two separate projects at the weekend that fit well together.

Project 1: Knitted blanket

This blanket hasn't taken very long to complete at all but I have really enjoyed doing it and it has come out really snuggly!! 

The pattern is worked in squares but instead of completing them all and sewing up afterwards you pick up stitches from block below as you add in each colour. This not only makes it a bit more interesting than making a load of squares but also removes the need to sew them all together at the end - Great!!

The wool was mostly left over from a the sweet as candy jacket I had made last year so I only had to buy a small amount to complete the project. I followed a pattern by Kino designs: Sweet Faux Hawk blanket but made up my own colours.

I did alter the pattern slightly as I am not a fan of garter stitch so used stocking stitch instead and added a moss stitch border. The final size is 34" x 40" perfect for a car seat or carry cot.

2) Dinosaur quilt

I have enjoyed doing a bit of quilting recently instead of making clothes all the time and  have even got all the left over bunting out from the wedding to start making the memory quilt that I have been intending to do for months. However, this project used a really cute quilt panel I found in the Quilters Den in Warwick two weeks ago.

I haven't used panels before so I decided to cut it up into blocks that could be recombined to form a square lap quilt or even floor blanket. I had to add a couple of fat quarters to have enough material to make the border but other than that the quilt is mostly made from the panel itself. 

The back is a grey cotton combined with a strip left over from the dinosaur panel. 

I layered the quilt with double thickness of wadding as I am intending the blanket to be thrown on the floor for baby to lie on rather than to cover him up. I had some fun playing with the different patterns on my machine before deciding on the wavy lines for quilting. I also outlined each of the dinosaurs.

Finally the binding was added which I hand stitched down. Again this was made from some fabric that was on the original panel to keep all the colours matching in.

I am really pleased with the final result and have already bought some more material to make some more quilts - at least the baby will be warm!!!!